Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Back in action!

Another exciting week here. I'm still not 100%, but I had to get back to doing things! Too much to do w/ too little time left!

Monday: We started Monday with a trip to the Museum of London. They have a new exhibit on Sherlock Holmes and since we had read a couple of his stories in Cryptography class, I thought it'd be fun to check it out. The first cool thing was that they had one of the stories we read ("The Adventures of the Dancing Men") wrapped around this little entry way outside of the museum AND they had the little stick figures on the side of the building (which the students noticed before I did). Super cool. The inside of the exhibit was just okay. There was one little display case about cryptography and Sherlock and another on fingerprint analysis done by Galton (which we had discussed in Stats), but the rest of it was just paintings/photos of London at the time Sherlock was written. This makes sense since it was an exhibit AT the Museum of London. After checking that out, I glanced around a bit at the rest of the museum. Not really my cup of tea. There was a tiny exhibit on Paddington Bear, whcih was fun. Oh and I saw the Lord Mayor's Day chariot thing. That was cool. After the museum, I did some work and got ready for our dinner w/ the Provost. The Provost was here Sunday-Tuesday checking out the program and such. We had him and his wife over for dinner on Monday w/ some of the IES staff. It was quite nice. Ed even pulled the old play the oven trick again. Good stuff. 



Secret entrance to the exhibit





Tuesday: Today's crypto class was some of the math behind MD5. We did hexadecimal and bit operations. This was all based on a module I've been working on w/ two colleagues over the last 6 months, so it was fun to see it in practice. After class, I did my 10 mile bridge run. I ran all 13 bridges in the heart of London from Battersea Bridge to Tower Bridge. Not as many steps as I thought. I took a pic of each bridge, but it was while I was running, so they weren't the best photos ever. Fun run for sure. I think I spent the rest of the day hard at work. That night we took almost all of the students to this great cheap cinema (Genesis Cinema) near Whitechapel. We saw The Imitation Game, which is the film about Alan Turning. I thought it was great! It was cool to get to see that after studying all the code stuff in class and visiting Blechley. Plus, it was fun to see a movie w/ 30 students. We had almost the whole theater to ourselves, so that was fun too. Great movie...you should see it if you get a chance! They do a great job telling the story of a female codebreaker too. :)















Wednesday: Today was the last day of upper-level math class. The students gave some nice presentations on more advanced cryptography topics. But, on my way to class I stopped at Herman Ze German to have some sausage and German orange soda. Tasty. And perfect timing as I finalized my German Christmas market plans that morning. After class, before I headed out there was a crazy protest walking down the street outside the IES building. Something about free education. Insane. After I made my way out of that mess, I headed to the Tate Modern and had a lovely afternoon exploring the museum. Definitely my kind of stuff. Plenty of good surrealism, cubism, and minimalism. Plus, these statutes by two different artists. But, I totally was in love with them. Nice to finally see this museum since I run by it so many days each week!

OK, so I think this is Richier. Love this.

This one (and the one below too!) is by Giacometti. Love!


Crazy modern art #1.

Crazy modern art #2


Thursday: Stats class today. ANOVA and checking in on projects. Then, I did an afternoon run on the water. That night Ed and I headed over to ITV studios to see The Graham Norton Show. This is like the UK version of The Tonight Show. Normally you have to queue for like 3 hours, but Ed had put his name in to do this segment called The Red Chair and they liked his story, so we got to go straight in to the theater. Boom! The show's guests were Jim Carey, Jeff Daniels, Jude Law, Tasmin Grieg, and Nichole Scherzinger (from the Pussycat Dolls). It was super fun watching the show and seeing the celebs interact. There were 6 or so other Red Chair contestants and only 3 ended up getting to tell their stories, but Ed wasn't one of them. Bummer! But, it was still cool that he got to go backstage and it saved us hours of waiting in line in the cold, so no loss there! The show will air on BBC America in a few weeks probably...so you all should look for it!!



Friday: I had a real case of the Mondays today. I got up at 6 to finish class prep, but still wasn't ready when I needed to leave at 8. Didn't have breakfast because I was in a hurry. Hopped into the local grocery next to work to grab some pastries and they didn't have my favorite in stock that morning. Left some files I needed for class on my computer here so couldn't pass out the things I wanted to in class. Left some stuff to hand back to students at home too. My shirt had static in it. Just annoying things. Nothing terrible, just annoying. We finished up talking about MD5 today in class and started a discussion about steganography. That's fun stuff. So, at least that was good. The previous night, I had asked Ed to go to lunch with me at 12:30 at a wine bar near the IES center because I had a Groupon that was expiring soon. He forgot about it and so we were running a bit late to lunch, but once we got there it was nice and fun to have fancy food in the middle of the day. After that I went home and did some work until I went and did a TimeOut offer I had purchased months ago. Headed out to catch a bus only to realize half-way to the bus stop that I had forgotten my Oyster card. My case of the Mondays continued. Once I made it to my destination, I had a nice cocktail on the 27th floor of the Milbank Tower and then watched a movie (The Rewrite w/ Hugh Grant) in this little theater they created on the first floor of the building. Loved the movie. It was a ridiculous romantic comedy about a screenwriter who had to become a college professor in some tiny town in order to make a living. It definitely helped improve my mood.



Saturday: I got up early and ran towards Asda so I could get my run in for the day. I carried my grocery bags in one hand which was a bit annoying, but it felt efficient to run somewhere. I did some shopping there, and then had a terrible time paying because they wouldn't accept my swipe card even though they had accepted it the week before. I'm done w/ that place. I also lost an ear bud cover in there. So, that was annoying. Did some work during the day and then met up w/ my friend Pete to check out the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. Total bad idea. That place was insane on a rainy Saturday. We had to queue to get in the building. THEN, it was a 45 minute wait to see the dinosaur room. We passed on that. But, we did see one dino and a whole bunch of stuffed dead animals. Now, I don't get this. I can see real tigers at the zoo. Why would I want to see dead stuffed ones? Weird. We also looked at exhibits about volcanoes and hung out in the earthquake simulator. I was a real Debbie Downer about the whole place, but it was still fun because it was just so ridiculously bad that I had to laugh. I might attempt to go back on a weekday after I get back from India. Maybe it would be less crowded then. In order to make up for this bad idea (of checking out this museum on a Saturday), Pete and I had a nice drink at a pub nearby. Then, I headed home to get more work done! Work, work, work!

Only dino sighting.

Darwin. I guess this was cool.


Sunday: It was a rainy, cold day today. So, great time to get more work done! But, after working from 7am-1pm or so, I decided I deserved a break. So, I met Pete and we checked out Draughts, a board game cafe in East London. They have like 500 board games and you go, get a table and play as much as you like. We had to wait about an hour for a table, so we got a cup of tea and checked out all the games while we waited. We ended up playing a two player version of Carcassonne, called The Castle. Don't do it. It's not as pretty as regular Carcassonne. Super cool place (but I so forgot to take a photo!). Nash--this is what we needed in Scandinavia! Plus everything was in English. Then, I wanted to check out this restaurant called LMNT that I wanted to take my parents to when they were here, but we ran out of town. We walked a few blocks, made it to the restaurant....and it was closed! Like for good. There was all this trash and broken furniture on the outside and the windows had been painted over. It had to happen recently, because I read reviews about the place that were posted in the last month. Total bust. I'm beginning to think Pete is bad luck (first no inflatable rabbits on Southbank, then history museum bust, then this). Whatever. It's fine. It was just funny at this point. So, I got out my trusty Yelp app and found a wine bar a few streets away. We went there and it was adorable and just fine. Then, it was back to work again! Fun outing.


And for Mom, this week's Paddington statues (one made of wood, Sherlock, and one with pigeons!):






Saturday, November 22, 2014

Reflections: Home

As we near the end of all this excitement, I have a few reflective posts to write. These are less about what I'm doing day-to-day, and more about thoughts on various overall experiences. Today's post is about home. I'm really starting to miss home. So, here are two lists that I will continue to edit as I think of things:

Why I'll miss London

Public Transport!
There's always something to do!
Markets
Royal Parks
Amazing places to run
It's London.
Easy side trips to cool places
Easy access to sweet art museums.
Tea. Yummy tea.
ITV studio tapings in my neighborhood
Bubble tea within walking distance
TimeOut
My schedule here (2 classes, 32 students total, no meetings)
Ciders. So many cider flavors.



Why I'm stoked to be back in Texas

Reese, my cat
Driving my car to the grocery store...in the rain. 
Hanging out with friends...and having lots of them.
My house...with my things.
My clothes! It'll be like Christmas. So many choices.
Dryer sheets
Kohl's
Being in the same time zone as friends/family
Less cigarette smoking
Less people everywhere
Cheap stuff
Less rain. Less cold. More daylight.
Redbox
Watching my DVR live and not through the internet (which makes it crazy slow some times).
Having an office at work
Being 5 minutes from my office and/or 5 minutes from home when I forget stuff
People to run with

Monday, November 17, 2014

Sick week, the one month to go mark, and some weekend field trips

Sorry for the delay in posts recently! I started getting a sore throat as I went to sleep Tuesday night and was sick the rest of the week. I'm feeling pretty good now, just a bit of a cough and runny nose still, but definitely better than before.

Tuesday: Tuesday's Crypto class consisted of the students sharing their ideas for the popular media and cryptography papers. Lots of cool stuff. I look forward to reading them. Then, we spent some time reviewing all the serious math we had done the previous week. Good catch-up day. Then, I came home and did some work until dinner time.  I had made a reservation at Maze by Gordon Rasmey for Ed and I because I wanted to try the other famous British chef (since we had already done Jamie Oliver). We did a 4-course meal deal thing that included a bellini. They brought all kinds of extras including the crazy breads/crisps plate you see below. Then, first course for me was a parsnip soup w/ some haddock and Ed had a raw beef marinated in ponzu that was amazing. Second course was grilled octopus for Ed and smoked mackerel for me. They even brought my plate out covered in a dome and opened the dome at the table and all this smoke came out. Super cool. Ed's dish was better though. The grill flavor on that octopus was amazing. Next up was a fish course for Ed and pork for me. Both were good, but I think mine was better. Desserts were also amazing. I had a chocolate/peanut butter bar w/ grilled banana. Ed had some sort of frozen yogurt and fig. Yummy! THEN, they brought out fresh baked madeleines. YUMMY! Well, after this the waiter came over and wanted to know if we wanted a private tour of the kitchen! What?! YES! So, we got to see Gordon Ramsey's kitchen. Not that he was there, but the head chef was and we got to see him. He was hard at work. A fascinating place. We're not sure why we got this treatment. We have two theories: 1. Ed and I were planning some upcoming dinners at our house, so we had pen/paper out the whole meal. Maybe that thought we were reviewers. 2. When the waiter asked at the beginning if we were there for a special occasion, Ed just said "The special occasion is coming to your restaurant." Maybe that did it. EITHER WAY, super cool and a fun night. We walked around Oxford Street on our way home to see Christmas lights and check out some of the Christmas windows (these were at Selfridges).













Star Wars dresses!






Wednesday: Woke up feeling sick, but needed to go to the grocery store. I tried out Asda today. It's apparently the London version of Wal-Mart. It was nice and easy since I also needed a few non-grocery items. And, I was good about only getting what I could carry. I came back home and slept a lot and did work. Late that morning I got an email saying my passport was ready at the Indian visa place! Well, actually it said "a decision has been made about your visa application and your passport is ready to be picked up during the hours of 4:30-6:00PM". I was nervous. A decision? What kind of decision? But, after a little bit of a wait, I got my passport w/ a visa. Yahoo!  After all that excitement, I had tickets to a Time Out show that night, but decided to pass because I felt horrible. It was only a few pounds and when I looked up the show online it looked a bit weird, so I didn't feel bad missing it. I think it was a good move.

Thursday: Struggled through 3 hours of stats class. We were mainly just checking in on projects, but there are 6 of those and I needed to spend a bit of time w/ each of them. It took the whole time. After that, I came home and slept until it was theater time. We went to see our final play together as a group, Charles III. It was actually quite fun. It was a comedy making fun of what might happen when Charles becomes king. Great acting by the people that played William and Kate and Harry and Camilla. Funny stuff.



Friday: I couldn't bare the thought of teaching math on Friday w/ my head hurting and my nose running and my sore throat, so I decided to show the documentary Codebreaker. It tells the story fo Alan Turing and is quite good. I had seen it at a Joint Math Meeting. Anyways, I thought it would be good for them to know the whole true story so they can compare it to the film, The Imitation Game which we are going to see on Tuesday. I hope they liked the documentary. I found it disturbing, but fascinating the first time I saw it. After class, I came home and did my run. I really needed to get a run in and so I sucked it up and did one. Ran along the river away from the people and it was just fine. Then, I went to Borough Market to pick up some items for a dinner we're having this week. Saw another Paddington, so took his photo for mom. :) That night we had the IES staff folks over for dinner to thank them for all the work this semester. It was really a nice night full of yummy food (made by Ed and myself and desserts from the staff), fun entertainment (oven playing again) and getting to know each other outside of work a bit more.



Saturday:  One month to go! Today, it was off to get the students and head to Windsor for the day. The castle is amazing. Not sure if I like it or Buckingham Palace more. I also enjoyed seeing the chapel where the Queen does all the knight stuff. Lots of neat stuff there. After spending some time at the castle, I had some Thai food for lunch, looked at some shops in the cute little town and then went and hung out w/ the swans on the river near Eton. I bought a couple of bags of food and some students and I had all sorts of fun w/ these bad boys (and girls). I made it back to London in time to meet up w/ a guy I met online. We decided to explore the Christmas market along Southbank. Mulled wine. And a Christmas Tree Maze. Awesome. And a search for inflatable rabbits. Unfortunately, it turns out the fancy rabbits won't be there until early December. Whatever. It was fun and fun to explore with someone. But, then it was back to work.









Sunday: Woke up early and got in a quick 5 mile run. I ran into these sweet faces painted on these weird concrete boxes next to the street. Sweet. Then, we were off to Brighton for the last IES field trip w/ the students. 2 hour bus ride on a double decker bus and we were there. Did a little tour of the city. Pier, The Lanes shopping area, and we ended up at the Royal Pavilion. This place is ridiculous. I didn't get a good photo of the front of it, but it looks like a baby Taj Mahal. Inside it's decorated in all sorts of Chinese art. Dragons and bamboo. Crazy crazy stuff! This thing was amazing. No pics on the inside, but believe me...it's impressive. Plus the audio guide had all sorts of soap opera like details of the royals of the past. Insane. After the Pavilion, I went and had Sunday Roast at a local pub. Yum. Then, I strolled The Lanes and did some shopping. Then, strolled the beach. Then, the pier. I rode a little Haunted Hotel roller coaster, played the Dolphin Derby (and lost), and played some arcade/ticket games and won enough tickets for a pencil. Exciting. :) Then, it was home and back to work.


Cool kissing art on the pier


Famous chocolate/candy store

Candy/chocolate snowmen!